


28 days later

by gonnafeelgood



Category: Bandom RPF, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-27
Updated: 2007-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gonnafeelgood/pseuds/gonnafeelgood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Brian has always figured that it would be Gerard who would pick him up when he inevitably fell. He isn't sure why he would have thought that the only person he has ever known who is broken in the ways he is would be the one to save him, but … well. Gerard Way saves lives, right?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	28 days later

Brian has always figured that it would be Gerard who would pick him up when he inevitably fell. He isn't sure why he would have thought that the only person he has ever known who is broken in the ways he is would be the one to save him, but … well. Gerard Way saves lives, right? Every life that isn't his own.

And, yeah, maybe it is a little unfair to expect some reciprocation, but … if there is anything that Brian learned in this last month, it is that his expectations are usually bullshit. That doesn't mean he doesn't have them.

So when Brian walks out of the clinic doors, he anticipates a monochromatic Gerard hunched on the stairs, smoke drifting up toward the sky. Instead, he gets Bob Bryar, leaning up against the door of a rental car, flipping his keys and looking placid.

_Awesome._ he thinks. _One of the only people I know that has never had to see the inside of a clinic picks me up from one._

Bob walks up to Brian, his posture and face showing nothing. As usual. Bob pulls him quickly into a hug, his arms wrapping firmly around Brian's waist.

When Bob steps back and presses his fingers over Brian's, Brian starts a little. Bob raises an eyebrow and looked down meaningfully.

Oh. His bags. Right.

Brian has always been the guy who carries other people's bags. He kind of forgets that people do shit like carry your bags, open car doors for you, hand the iPod to you to pick out the music.

It's only after they have pulled onto the interstate and Brian has selected _Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band_ that he looks over at Bob and says, quietly: "Thanks."

Bob's lips quirk up on one side as he calmly steers them into the merge lane. "Of course. Anytime."

*

Brian has known Bob for years, even before any of the guys in the band really did. He's always preferred hanging out with the techs than the bands, even before the guys started playing festivals where there would inevitably be assholes thinking they were hot shit.

Techs never thought they were hot shit, they KNEW they were. It was a small, but vital difference.

Brian always noticed the broad blonde guy who spent a lot of time behind soundboards when everyone else was getting drunk on Projekt Revolution. He wasn't unfriendly, not really, but he was no life of the party, either. More often than anything else, he just looked vaguely bemused. Brian thought that he could use some bemused in his life to balance out the manic batshit insane that seemed to be every other guy he knew.

So when he walked up to the guy with a beer in his hand and another outstretched in offering, he didn't have expectations. Not exactly. More like hazy hopes.

"Hey," he'd said. "I'm Brian. Want a beer?"

Those hopes found a little more solid ground when the guy gave him an appraising look and picked the can out of his hand. "Bob. Thanks."

*

Ray had pushed the Matt issue, but Frank and Brian had been the ones who called Bob. Brian had expected to have to wheedle, to explain, to beg. He should have known better.

"Sure," Bob had said sixty seconds into the call. "When do you need me out there?"

*

It's only after Bob checks them into some hotel in San Francisco that Brian gets up the nerve to ask.

"Why you?" Brian asks, stretching on his belly and reaching for his cell charger before he remembers that it isn't by the bed. Bob had put his bags by the bathroom instead of at the foot of the bed, where Brian always puts them.

Bob looks up, his hand stilling on the doorknob that he had been jiggling an old-school key into. "I wanted to," he says.

Brian doesn't know what to say to that.

So he says nothing.

*

They are sitting with their backs against the bed, watching _Shaun of the Dead_ for the hundredth time (and it must mean something that Bob chose the movie when he hadn't been much of a zombie movie guy three years ago) when Brian feels warm hands on his shoulders. "What?" he mumbles, swatting uselessly.

"You were sleeping," Bob says, his voice quietly affectionate. "Get into bed, man."

"Don't wanna," Brian whines a little. "Too far away."

Bob huffs out a breath, possibly amused, and Brian feels something lifting.

_Oh hey,_ he thinks. _That's me._

"Skinny little fucker," he thinks he hears Bob mutter as he deposits him on the bed.

"Like you're one to talk," Brian manages to get out through a yawn.

Bob ruffles his hair a little and starts to move away. Brian reaches out, his hand hovering in the air.

"Please, don't …" he trails off, not sure if he can do this, even half-asleep.

Bob has stopped, his eyes impossibly wide and blue in the blue light of the TV screen.

"Stay?" Brian manages to grit out.

Bob stays.

*

It was actually pretty amazing that they'd never hooked up. Brian wasn't exactly the least promiscuous guy he knew, though he also wasn't the most. Fucking Ray Toro managed to make Brian's exploits look like teenage experimentation, the fucker.

But while Brian was open to the casual hookup, Bob didn't seem to go for them. It wasn't that he didn't have the opportunities – Brian knew for a fact that five girls, two guys, and Gerard Way had tried. He just didn't seem to take them.

They never hooked up, but they had slept together. A couple of times, they had woken up tangled together in hotel rooms after parties, in the back of Brian's van, and once, in the bathroom of someone else's hotel room.

They didn't really talk about it. It was easier that way.

*

Brian blinks a few times when he wakes up the next morning. He is still getting used to waking up without the headpounding of the night before and a shirtless Bob Bryar is not helping him acclimate at all.

Bob's eyes are closed, his arms fisted under his pillow and his body curled into itself. His shoulders, thinner than Brian has ever seen them, are still incredibly broad and he manages to take up a lot of the bed without even trying. Bob is solid. Even this newer, smaller, more compact Bob is solid.

Brian reaches out without thinking, floating a hand over Bob's face. Although he doesn't touch him, it must be enough to push Bob the rest of the way to awake. His eyes open, clear like nobody has any business being first thing in the morning.

"Why did you want to?" Brian whispers quickly. He doesn't explain what he means, figuring Bob will get it.

Bob does. "You're you," Bob responds quietly.

Brian lets his hand fall the rest of the way toward Bob's face and cups his chin as he leans forward into the inch between them. His dry lips ghost over Bob's. It is … something. Maybe a promise or a thank you or a question.

"Yeah," Bob says as his hand reaches for Brian's face. "Anytime."

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://secrethappiness.livejournal.com/profile)[**secrethappiness**](http://secrethappiness.livejournal.com/), who can always use presents. And, really, the world can always use more Bob Bryar and Brian Schechter, right? Unbetaed, so if you catch something off, please let me know.


End file.
